Dude, I just found out that Kegasus won’t be at the Preakness this year, will we be seeing the Re-form blimp?

-          Dude

Whoa Dude – what would Preakness be without Black Eyed Susan’s, Mint Juleps, funny hats, and the Re-form blimp? And the excitement in the infield each year when the traditional late afternoon “You catch it – You Keep It” office furniture drop is announced!

Remember last year’s winner of this almost new four drawer lateral file? I bet not!! The Re-form Person hopes to see you there for this terrific Baltimore tradition.

Our stakeholders build the Future with unrestrained minds, and I am tasked with in-filling work modules that will tap our raw, latent genius. Mainstream, structured workstations are not for us Re-form Person. But these are unbelievable! Check out what we need to lock up serious brainshare:

Edgy and free-form, maybe my favorite	Jody Foster in "Contact"?
Lord Vader! A little creepy maybe.	Sooo Groovey!

What do you think Re-form Person, can you help us with this?

-           Excited

No.

 I’m not completely disappointed the world didn’t end on 12/21/12, but I really do miss that blissful sense of futility. I’d been putting off doing real work in the face of extinction, but instead of checking out in the Big One, my negligence has me staring into the gaping maw of unemployment. Which by the way, I’d have to face comparatively alone. 

But the buzz on the street is that Re-form has uncovered another possibility for the End of Days. So how much longer do we have Used  Office Furniture Person?

 -       What’s the Use

Word gets around fast WTU! Re-form has in fact uncovered evidence that the End is near, and Re-form Furniture Forensics (RFF) is just now working out how and when. Check out the post-Mayan physics hidden for years under the fabric of this vintage ElvisWall ^TM panel shown below:

Nothing odd about an Elvis panel, but whoa - what's with the math?

 

Preliminary evidence suggests the end will come from giant bugs, and as soon as RFF has confirmed this, we’ll Tweet. In the meantime, buy as much used office furniture as you can.

Preppers, stock up on Raid too!

 

 

Well, it’s been another year, and the Re-form family has been busy! Since the Holidays last year, we’ve all accomplished a lot, so in the spirit of the season The Re-form Person would like to share some highlights:

Kenny missed the biggest buck ever to walk the hills of Garrett County, Tracey’s lizard jumped in the air and caught a bug, and Clayton wrecked his motorcycle. Rich F was banned from six karaoke bars, Sammie won the lottery and didn’t quit, and Maria dumped her scooter in the rain. Al barbecued a bear, Dorothy got fed up with Jim S and decided to move to South Carolina, and Toni sold the motorcycle she dumped last year. Finally, Shane ate almost all of Al’s bear, and our health insurance policy is being revoked.

We hope your year was every bit as eventful, and wish all a Happy Holiday Season, and a Great New Year!

I spent Wednesday at NeoCon East and don’t mind saying there was a bewildering display of furnituring options this year! I hadn’t been out of the badging line ten minutes before I became overwhelmed by options for seating, filing, desking, and benching. Then I saw your remanufactured desk/panel/bench-like rig and was really impressed with the fact that it was up to date, and at the same time built largely from remanufactured furniture components. Great idea! Would you call that “benching”, “desking” or “paneling”?

-          Just Asking

Boothing

Whoa – don’t think the Re-form Person and fellow furniture etymologists haven’t anguished over that, Asking human! This composite work station is what sailors might have called a “hermaphrodite rig”, but regrettably, history notes that term evolved into the “jackass rig” so it is best to be wary of grandiose monikers.

Sophisticated categories like “desking” and “benching” are already taken. Regrettably, the word “paneling” suggests the homely wood-like plywood used for “clubbing” out basements, and “clubbing” conjures up images of Harp Seal pups. (The Re-form Person needn’t even declare that no fur is used in the remanufacture of office furniture. This company is all about sustainability and green stuff like that)

Inventing product names for furniture has been tried before. Steelcase attempted to reinvent the sturdy, dependable Movable Wall system by naming it Avenir, perhaps to ape the great names the automotive industry has given to their products – the Marauder, the Intruder, or the Impreza. Re-form also reviewed pharmaceutical industries iconic Viagra, and Fukitol.

Perhaps not. Despite the recommendations reported from extensive Focus Grouping, the consensus at Re-form is “Remanufactured Work Station”. For the DoD, it’s an RWS.

Dear Re-form Person,

Wow, when did the weather get so bad? Will buying used office furniture help reverse global warming?

-          Steamed

Of all God’s creatures, Steamed, humans seem to be the last to respond to climate change. The Re-form Person remembers having that epiphany in a grocery store in 2005. This headline in the Weekly World News connected like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist:

Whoa!

Could it be that seven years ago, our appetizers were reacting to climate change; the same changes many of us are still denying? If that headline isn’t enough, the internet is teeming with other examples of nature out of balance: 

We're gunna need a bigger chopper...

So, to answer your question Steamed, climate change didn’t just start this year, and buying used office furniture alone won’t reverse global warming. But it might keep Mother Nature off our backs till we colonize Mars.

Re-form does it's part on the ice cap.

I have two questions – first, why is the Higgs particle called the “God Particle”? And second, will understanding the “God Particle” help me find quality used office furniture?

-          Gotta Know

Seriously, it seems like ever since they fired up that Large Hadron Collider this summer, people have been doing nothing but asking the Re-form Person about what the discovery of the God Particle will mean to the used office furniture industry. Our lines have been snarled-up for a month, so it’s time to set the record straight.

All right, the first answer; why “God Particle”? Years ago, Peter Higgs first wanted to publish his dark matter theory under the title, “The Goddamn Particle”, but his publisher didn’t share his frustration with finding the speck, and thought the title “The God Particle” would sell better. Though it is unarguably a compelling title, it makes other physicists sick when they hear it, and these days Higgs is down to hanging out with known felons and fabric reps.

Now, the second question; what’s it got to do with office furniture? Simply put, the Higgs Particle gives garden variety particles mass, so be sure your office furniture has plenty of them or it will dissipate at the speed of light before you can even add it to your depreciation schedule. Just remember this my friend, used office furniture from Re-form is loaded with Goddamn Particles, so it’s going to last.

I think the last person to use my workstation was murdered in it. At a certain time of day I feel queasy and distressed. I have the eerie feeling that unfinished business lurks in the inky shadows beneath my work surface. You know more about used office furniture than anyone, Re-form Person; can you exorcise a workstation?

-          Creeped Out

Possessed panels are harder to puzzle out than bad task light lamps Creepmeister, but Re-form has resources for everything. For starters, Re-form would never ship office furniture that was possessed. And all Receiving personnel have badges similar to those that measure radiation found in nuclear facilities, but these are made from the ultra-sophisticated material that mood rings are made of. Once a gatekeeper’s badge changes to a blue/violet color Re-form springs into action.

Whoa! Don't try this at home.

This secret technology dates back to the 1930’s but remains effective even in 21^st century office furniture applications. Sometimes however, the furniture has been so traumatized that we have to call someone we know only as “Gary”.  He is the only one the Re-form Person knows of that could possibly help you.

Power used for Good, never Evil.

Dear Re-form Person,

The front page of the 5/20/2012 Sunday New York Times featured an article by John Tierney, “From Cubicles, Cry for Quiet Pierces the Office Buzz”, which exposes how unhappy workers are in new “open office” layouts. I was under the impression that this design lends itself to collaboration, but the article suggests people don’t collaborate as much as they create new barriers to replace their old cubicle walls. Seriously, headphones are the new workstation? This doesn’t sound like collaboration to me Re-form Person…

-          Skeptical

There are abundant complaints about noise in the open office, and there are accolades from those who like direct access to their coworkers. In an attempt to understand the effect of both environments on productivity, behavior and well-being, Re-form rented time on a HAL 9000 computer and modeled the effect of several months working in cubicles and in the more spare open office environment. The result was volumes of data, and accounts of markedly different “typical days” in each circumstance. A snapshot of the systems furniture control group after two months is shown below:

Next, observe the same office space after two months, but modeled in an “open office” layout:

It is not even necessary to pore over the volumes of data to understand that there are differences in these environments. But regrettably Skeptical, the data alone reveal no quantitative evidence for one design having clear advantages over the other. Yet evaluating the snapshots subjectively, it is possible to find a point on the cubicle to open office continuum that you are most comfortable with.

We are relocating and have a debate raging within Planning and Design. Some say that an “Open Office” design inspires collaboration, and others insist that workstations are more productive because there are fewer distractions. In all of this debate no one has considered which design would prove superior in a predicted Zombie Apocalypse. Is there information available on this?

-          Wary

Unfortunately Wary, there is a great deal of information published regarding the general health risks posed by zombies, but scant data on planning for zombies in the commercial office. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control has a site called Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse, which is a wealth of information on surviving in public and domestic spaces, but discloses no useful studies on zombie perils in the workplace.

Additional investigation of publications from the University of Glasgow’s Zombie Institute for Theoretical Studies, which has been doing pioneering work in Zombiology since 1979, reveals that most research at ZITS to date is centered on physiology and epidemiology rather than laying out office furniture.

So, undeterred by a lack of useful data, it is appropriate to infer from studies on zombie behavior, how groups of zombies would behave upon getting off the elevator on your floor. First, consider the image below of an informal collaborative workplace, and imagine zombie’s reaction to this tableau behind the now deserted reception desk:

The tired idiom “low-hanging fruit” is unnervingly appropriate for this design.

Now consider this next example:

A thwarted stand-in “zombie” is stumped by this otherwise ridiculous design.

The solution lies somwhere in between. Just stick to more practical solutions Wary, such as higher panels at the building core and lobby areas, and a bewildering layout behind. These two simple steps will afford staff additional time to exit through darkened stairwells, and out narrow, blind alleys.

A final note; if the conditions “undead” or “walking dead” become legislated as disabilities, compliments of the zombie lobby, then workplace ADA compliance will become certain suicide – so contact your Congress Human today.